Heart Pine Bowl

[Mike Stafford]

Here is a small antique heart pine bowl that I turned from a piece of timber salvaged from a warehouse that was built sometime around 1840. As I turned the smell was of fresh cut pine. This wood is very hard and bears no resemblance to the pine that is harvested today.

The long leaf pines of those days were a 100 feet tall and straight as an arrow. They were cut down for naval stores, rosin, tar and as stock for masts. In the swamps of eastern N.C. there are abandoned mills where the wood from these trees was processed and boiled down for its sap. At one time these trees were nearly a continuous forest from southern Virginia to Texas. Now there are only small forests left of this magnificent timber. I have about 20 of these "telephone pole" pines on my property some of which are more than two feet in diameter at the base.

3 1/2" tall and 5 1/2" in diameter, this bowl is finished in multiple coats of poly.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

Very pretty, Mike. The form is spot on, and I love the grain in the wood.

That said, it doesn't look anything like a heart. You'll have to try harder next time, lol.

 

[Dave Hoskins]

Good looking bowl, Mike. I have personally always stayed away from pine due to the turpentine smell. Don't know for sure, but I was once told it was one wood that may not be considered food friendly because of sap and so on. As I said, i don't know if that is true 100%, but the guy was an old woodworker and I figgered he might know.

 

[David Johnson]

Might be pine but it certainly has beautiful grain. Still could be used to hold doodads not food stuff. Nice bowl.
David

 

[Ryan Mooney]

I have personally always stayed away from pine due to the turpentine smell.

Once it gets old enough that's not really much of a thing. Also this old growth just doesn't have the resin content of most new, or at least not the "juicy resin content" in the same way I guess. Fresh out of the tree is another ball of sticky mess so I'd agree with your sentiment in general if not in particular.

I have a piece that was laid up as a floorboard in a loft sometime in the mid 1700's that I need to do something with. A friend gave it to me, so my intention is to, of course, give it back as a finished product (some waffling on the specifics as I look at the grain structure). Cutting a light sample sliver off of the most damaged side it's quite different, like a mild maple almost, very little tendency to splinter and while hard also cuts pretty nice.

 

[Mike Stafford]

Ryan, a number of years ago a customer asked me to make a box for his wife from some heart pine floor boards that he saved from an old peanut warehouse that burned. These boards were unaffected. I told him I would try.

Well, the boards were 1 1/2" thick except for where they passed over the 3" wide floor joists. At that point they were hand hewn with an adze to get a uniform thickness.. It was necessary for me to re-saw this thick stock to get it to the same thickness so I could run it through the planer. I saved the rough hewn slabs that I sawed off. Once I had the wood to workable size I developed a simple split lid box. For the bottom of the box I used one of the rough bottoms I had re-sawn and planed the re-sawn side to get it to even thickness. Then I rabbeted this piece so it could float in a groove around the bottom inside of the box. Here is the result with a picture of a scrap of one of the floor boards I used. By the way the top surface of those boards was filled with grit and grime from who knows how many years of service in that warehouse. My planer blades did not like that grit and grime.